Into the woods

I watched this movie yesterday night on release day and wow was it worth the price of my cinema ticket and more. Fairytale movies and adaptations have always been a key area of interest, ever since I divulged into studying them for my dissertation at school. I've always liked the re-occurring nature of such stories, and it intrigues me to know that hundreds of years on these stories still are adapted and retold through many mediums, not just films,most notably the 'Land of Stories' books by Chris Colfer, a notable example. A downside of the fairy tales are there stereotypical nature, reoccurring character types and 'happy ever after ending', and some adaptations have been so awful and not worth anyone's time, but this film, by far is not one of them, its extraordinary. 

Combining these classic tales within the musical genre was amazing. I am a sucker for musicals, those like Les Miserables, Mamma Mia and basically anything similar so this film was right up my street.

The music was so great, all of the cast could sing amazingly, especially since I didn't realise some of them could. There was a perfect balance of themes, love, longing, despair, comical, mystery intertwined within the lyrics. The prologue was great, I loved how throughout the film its seemliness, crossing over with the different character arcs, and how the music combined the storyline into one ongoing one. 'Hello little girl' performed by Depp and Crawford was creepy with Depp continuously drawling 'hellooooo little girl'. 'Agony' performed by Pine and Magnussen was jokes, it had the whole cinema chuckling because it was just so egotistical and cheesy.  Blunt and Corden performing 'It takes two' was so cute, their chemistry within the film was so great, they were forgiving and in to in love to be mad at each other for more than a minute, wonderful pairing, and cute song. Meryl Streep... yesssssssssss, 'Stay with me' and all her amazing powerful and emotional songs were magical, I just love her voice, so powerful and soft. Kendrick was fabulous too, perfect role for her, 'one the steps of the palace' was great to showcase her high pitch. Blunt's last few songs especially 'moments in the woods' was epic, reminded me a lot of Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables. The scene of blame, 'Your fault' was a great analogy of what had happened in the story so far, it was a fast and jam packed analysis of who was to blame for the giant coming down. 'No one is alone' was also truly beautiful. I also liked the 'children will listen' notion. 'The last midnight' aswell, yesss Meryl (sorry). Congratulations Stephen Sondheim on an array of fantastic scores, give him an Oscar. 

As I said I loved how the stories intertwined with each other and how the music flowed and stopped suddenly, and how the camera shots only revealed a snippet of a certain scene, especially the baker's wife's death, only the hand in the shot, and the audience can just infer she is going to die, coupled with the music slowing. The actors all had great chemistry and played their roles well.The younger actors were great and I recognised Huttlestone who played Jack from Les Mis. And I liked how they subverted the fact that these characters did not get their desired and planned happy ending, the typical ending, Prince charming and Cinderella, etc, but they created a new one. And I liked how we didn't see how their lives panned out, it was left open for our interpretation, and just panned out into the woods.

10/10